You know, when I was in high school there was a guy who always wanted to date me, and I kept telling him no.
He was a mechanic. He loved motorcycles. He was just a simple, down-to-earth guy. He was always sweet to me and treated me well. At one point he even asked me to marry him. He bought a Mustang because he knew I liked them.
And still, I wouldn't date him.
Then I went to basic training and lost track of him. Before I left, I was dating someone else, and life just moved on.
I came home, had children, got married, got divorced, and every once in a while I would find myself wondering what happened to him.
Have you ever had a regret like that?
Maybe it wasn't a person.
Maybe it was an opportunity you didn't take.
Maybe it was a dream you talked yourself out of.
Maybe it was a chance you were too afraid to pursue.
For me, it wasn't just that one relationship.
I also regretted not going into the Army full-time after I returned home. Instead, I stayed in the Reserves until I was eventually discharged because I became pregnant while unmarried. Back in the 1980s, there were no family care plans for single parents. If you weren't married, you couldn't stay.
Oops... there's another regret.
For years, I was angry with myself about those decisions. I replayed them in my mind over and over. I wondered what my life would have looked like if I had made different choices.
But here's what I eventually learned:
I couldn't go back.
No amount of guilt could change the past.
No amount of wishing could rewrite the story.
At some point, I had to accept that I made the best decisions I could with the knowledge, maturity, and circumstances I had at the time.
Were they perfect decisions?
No.
Would I make some of them differently today?
Absolutely.
But beating myself up wasn't helping me move forward.
The hardest person for many of us to accept isn't our parents, our ex-spouse, our children, or the people who hurt us.
It's ourselves.
We hold ourselves hostage for mistakes we made years ago. We expect grace for everyone else while refusing to give any to ourselves.
Acceptance doesn't mean pretending your mistakes didn't happen.
It means recognizing they helped shape the person you are today.
Every regret taught me something.
Every wrong turn led me somewhere.
Every mistake became part of the journey that eventually brought me here.
If you're carrying around regrets today, maybe it's time to stop asking, "What if?"
Maybe it's time to ask, "What now?"
Because acceptance isn't about approving of every decision you've made.
It's about making peace with your past so you can fully step into your future.